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Vol. II. No. lo. Five cents. 



Per Year, Fifty cents 



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Xittle 3ournei?5 

SERIES FOR 1896 

Xlttle Jomnc^s to tbe Ibomes ot 
Bmerican Butbors 

The papers below specified, were, with the 
exception of that contributed by the editor, 
Mr. Hubbard, originally issued by the late 
G. P. Putnam, in 1853, in a series entitled 
Homes of American Authors, It is now 
nearly half a century since this series (which 
won for itself at the time a very noteworthy 
prestige) was brought before the public ; and 
the present publishers feel that no apology is 
needed in presenting to a new generation of 
American readers papers of such distinctive 
biographical interest and literary value. 

No. I, Emerson, by Geo. "W. Curtis. 
" 2, Bryant, by Caroline M. Kirkland. 
** 3, Prescott, by Geo. S. Hillard. 
** 4, Lowell, by Charles F. Briggs. 
'* 5, Simms, by Wm. Cullen Bryant. 
•* 6, ^Valt Whitman, by Elbert Hubbard. 
*• 7, Hawthorne, by Geo. Wm. Curtis. 
'• 8, Audubon, by Parke Godwin. 
*' 9, Irving, by H. T. Tuckerman. 

*' 10, Longfellow^ by Geo. Wm. Curtis. 

" II, Everett, by Geo. S. Hillard. 

** 12, Bancroft, by Geo. W. Greene. 

The above papers, which will form the 
series of Little Journeys for the year 1896, 
will be issued monthly, beginning January, 
in the same general style as the series of 
1895, at 50cts. a year. Single copies, 5 cts., 
postage paid. 

Entered at the Post Office, New Rochelle, N Y., 
as second class matter 



Copyright, 1896, by 

G. P. Putnam's sons 

27 A 29 West 23D Street, New York 

24 Bedford Street, Strand, London 

The Knickerbocker Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 



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LONGFELLOW. 



297 



This is the place. Stand still, my steed, 

Let me review the scene ; 
And summon from the shadowy Past 

The forms that once have been. 

A Gleam of Sunshine. 



298 



LONGFELLOW. 



BY GKORGE: Wn^LIAM CURTIS.* 



ONK calm afternoon in the summer 
of 1837, a young man passed 
down the elm-shaded walk that 
separated the old Craigie House in Cam- 
bridge from the highroad. Reaching the 
door, he paused to observe the huge, 
old-fashioned brass knocker and the 
quaint handle, — relics, evidently, of an 
epoch of colonial state. To his mind, 
however, the house and these signs of 
its age, were not interesting from the 
romance of antiquity alone, but from 
their association with the early days of 

* Written in 1853 for Putnam's Homes of Ameri- 
can Authors, 

299 



Xon^tellow 



our revolution, when General Washing- 
ton, after the battle of Bunker Hill, had 
his headquarters in the mansion. Had 
his hand, perhaps, lifted this same latch, 
lingering as he clasped it in the whirl 
of a myriad emotions? Had he, too, 
paused in the calm summer afternoon, 
and watched the silver gleam of the 
broad river in the meadows — the dreamy 
blue of the Milton hills beyond? And 
had the tranquillity of that landscape 
penetrated his heart with ** the sleep that 
is among the hills," and whose fairest 
dream to him was a hope now realized in 
the peaceful prosperity of his country ? 

At least the young man knew that if 
the details of the mansion had been some- 
what altered, so that he could not be per- 
fectly sure of touching what Washington 
touched, yet he saw what Washington 
saw — the same placid meadow-lands, the 
same undulating horizon, the same calm 
stream. And it is thus that an old house 
of distinct association, asserts its claim 
and secures its influence. It is a nucleus 
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of interest, — a heart of romance, from 
which pulse a thousand reveries enchant- 
ing the summer hours. For although 
every old country mansion is invested 
with a nameless charm, from that anti- 
quity which imagination is forever crowd- 
ing with the pageant of a stately and 
beautiful life, yet if there be some clearly 
outlined story, even a historic scene pecu- 
liar to it, then around that, as the bold 
and picturesque foreground, all the ima- 
gery of youth, and love, and beauty, in 
a thousand-fold variety of development, 
is grouped, and every room has its poetic 
passage, every window its haunting face, 
every garden-path its floating and fading 
form of a quite imperishable beauty. 

So the young man passed not unac- 
companied down the elm-shaded path, 
and the air and the scene were affluent 
of radiant phantoms. Imaginary ladies, 
of a state and dignity only possible in 
the era of periwigs, advanced in all the 
solemnity of mob-caps to welcome the 
stranger. Grave old courtiers, beruffled, 
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bewigged, sworded, and laced, trod iu- 
audibly, with gracious bow, the spacious 
walk; and comely maidens, resident in 
mortal memory now only as shrivelled 
and tawny duennas, glanced modest 
looks, and wondered what new charm 
had risen that morning upon the some- 
what dull horizon of their life. These, 
arrayed in the richness of a poet's fancy, 
advanced to welcome him. For well 
they knew whatever of peculiar interest 
adorned their house would blossom into 
permanent forms of beauty in the light 
of genius. They advanced to meet, as 
the inhabitants of foreign and strange 
towns approach, with supplication and 
submission, the leader in whose eyes 
flames victory, sure that he would do for 
them more than they could do for them- 
selves. 

But when the brazen clang of the huge 
knocker had ceased resounding, the great 
door slowly opened, and no phantom 
serving-man, but a veritable flesh and 
blood retainer of the hostess of the man- 
302 



Uon^tellow 



sion invited the visitor to enter. He in- 
quired for Mrs. Craigie. In answer, the 
door of a little parlor was thrown open, 
and the young man beheld a tall, erect 
figure, majestically crowned with a tur- 
ban, beneath which burned a pair of 
keen gray eyes. A commanding gravity 
of deportment, harmonious with the 
gentle-woman's age, and with the ances- 
tral respectability of the mansion, assured 
profound respect ; while, at a glance, it 
was clear to see that combination of re- 
duced dignity condescending to a lower 
estate, and that pride of essential supe- 
riority to circumstances, which is tradi- 
tional among women in the situation of 
the turbaned lady. There was kindli- 
ness mellowing the severity of her reply 
to her visitor's inquiry if there was a 
room vacant in the house. 

''I lodge students no longer," she re- 
sponded gravely, possibly not without 
regret — as she contemplated the appli- 
cant — that she had vowed so stem a reso- 
lution. 

303 



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"But I am not a student,'* answered 
the stranger; **I am a professor in the 
University/' 

^^A professor?" said she inquiringly, 
as if her mind failed to conceive a pro- 
fessor without a clerical sobriety of ap- 
parel, a white cravat, or at least specta- 
cles. 

** Professor Longfellow," continued 
the guest, introducing himself. 

**Ah! that is different," said the old 
lady, her features slightly relaxing, as if 
professors were, ex-officio^ innocuous, and 
she need no longer barricade herself 
behind a stern gravity of demeanor. **I 
will show you what there is." 

Thereupon she preceded the Professor 
up the stairs, and gaining the upper hall, 
paused at each door, opened it, permitted 
him to perceive its delightful fitness for 
his purpose, — kindled expectation to the 
utmost — then quietly closed the door 
again, observing : ** You cannot have 
that." It was most Barmecide hospital- 
ity. The professorial eyes glanced rest- 
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lessly around the fine old-fashioned points 
of the mansion, marked the wooden carv- 
ings, the air of opulent respectability in 
the past, which corresponds in New Eng- 
land to the impression of ancient nobility 
in old England, and wondered in which 
of these pleasant fields of suggestive asso- 
ciation he was to be allowed to pitch his 
tent. The turbaned hostess at length 
opened the door of the southeast comer 
room in the second story, and, while the 
guest looked wistfully in and awaited 
the customary, ''You cannot have that,'* 
he was agreeably surprised by a variation 
of the strain to the effect that he might 
occupy it. 

The room was upon the front of the 
house, and looked over the meadows to 
the river. It had an atmosphere of fas- 
cinating repose, in which the young man 
was at once domesticated, as in an old 
home. The elms of the avenue shaded 
his windows, and as he glanced from 
them, the summer lay asleep upon the 
landscape in the windless day. 
305 



%ongtcllow 



'^ This/' said the old lady, with a slight 
sadness in her voice, as if speaking of 
times forever past and to which she her- 
self properly belonged, — ** this was Gen- 
eral Washington's chamber." 

A light more pensive played over the 
landscape, in the Poet's eyes, as he heard 
her words. He knew that such a pres- 
ence had consecrated the house, and pecu- 
liarly that room. He felt that whoever 
fills the places once occupied by the great 
and good, is himself held to greatness and 
goodness by a sympathy and necessity 
sweet as mysterious. Forever after, his 
imagination is a more lordly picture-gal- 
lery than that of ancestral halls. Through 
that gallery he wanders, strong in his hu- 
mility and resolve, valiant as the last scion 
of noble Norman races, devoting himself, 
as of old knights were devoted, by earnest 
midnight meditation and holy vows, to 

Act, — act in the living Present ! 
Heart within and God overhead ! 

The stately hostess retired, and the next 
day the new lodger took possession of his 
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room. He lived entirely apart from the 
old lady, although under the same roof. 
Her manner of life was quiet and unob- 
trusive. The silence of the ancient man- 
sion, which to its new resident was truly 
"the still air of delightful studies,'* was 
not disturbed by the shrill cackle of a 
country household. In the morning, af- 
ter he had settled himself to the day's 
occupation, the scholar heard the faint 
and measured tread of the old lady as she 
descended to breakfast, her silken gown 
rustling along the hall as if the shadowy 
brocade of some elder dame departed, 
who failed to discover in the ghostly still- 
ness of the well-known passage, that she 
had wandered from her sphere. Then, 
after due interval, if, upon his way to the 
day's collegiate duties, the professor en- 
tered the hostess's little parlor to offer 
her good morning, he found her seated by 
the open window, through which stole the 
sweet New England air, lifting the few 
gray locks that straggled from the tur- 
ban, as tenderly as Greek winds played 
307 



Xongtellow 



with Helenas curls. Upon her lap lay an 
open volume of Voltaire, possibly, for the 
catholicity of the old lady's mind enter- 
tained whatever was vigorous and free, — 
and from the brilliant wit of the French- 
man, and his icy precision of thought and 
statement, she turned to the warm day 
that flooded the meadows with summer, 
and which in the high tree-tops above 
her head sang in breez}-, fitful cadences 
of a beauty that no denizen of the sum- 
mer shall ever see, and a song sweeter 
than he shall ever hear. It was because 
she had heard and felt this breath of na- 
ture that the matron in her quaint old 
age could enjoy the page of the French- 
man, even as in her youth she could have 
admired the delicacy of his point-lace 
ruffles, nor have less enjoyed, by reason 
of that admiration, the green garden -walk 
of Ferney, in which she might have seen 
them. 

Or at times, as the scholar studied, he 
heard footsteps upon the walk, and the 
old knocker clanged the arrival of guests, 
308 



Hongtellow 



who passed into the parlor, and, as the 
door opened and closed, he could hear, 
far away and confused, the sounds of 
stately conversation, until there was a 
prolonged and louder noise, a bustle, the 
jar of the heavy door closing, the dying 
echo of footsteps, — and then the deep and 
ghostly silence again closed around the 
small event as the sea ripples into calm 
over a sinking stone. Or more dreamily 
still, as at twilight the poet sat musing 
in his darkening room — hearing the 
*^ footsteps of angels'* sounding, melo- 
dious and low, through all the other 
** voices of the night,''— he seemed to 
catch snatches of mournful music thril- 
ling the deep silence with sorrow, and, 
listening more intently, he heard dis- 
tinctly the harpsichord in the old lady's 
parlor, and knew that she was sitting, 
turbaned and wrinkled, where she had 
sat in the glowing triumph of youth, and 
with wandering fingers was drawing in 
feeble and uncertain cadence from the 
keys, tunes she had once dashed from 
309 



%ongtcUo\v 



them in all the fulness of harmony. Or 
when, the summer following the poet's 
arrival, the blight of canker-worms fell 
upon the stately old trees before the 
house, and struck them mortally, so that 
they gradually wasted and withered away, 
— if then the young man entered her par- 
lor and finding her by the open window, 
saw that the worms were crawling over 
her dress and hanging from her white tur- 
ban, and asked her if they were not disa- 
greeable and if she would do nothing to 
destroy them, she raised her eyes from 
another book than Voltaire's, and said to 
him gravely : ** Why, sir, they are our 
fellow-worms, and have as good a right 
to live as we." And as the poet returned 
to his chamber, musing more than ever 
upon the Saturn Time that so remorse- 
lessly consumes his own children, and 
picturing the gay youth of the grave old 
hostess, he could not but pause, leaning 
upon the heavy balusters of the stairs 
and remember the tradition of the house, 
that once, as an old hostess, like his own, 
310 



Xongtellow 



lay waiting for death in her chamber, she 
sent for her young guest, like himself, to 
come and take last leave of her, and as 
he entered her room, and advancing to 
her bedside, saw her lying stretched at 
length and clutching the clothes around 
her neck, so that only her sharply fea- 
tured and shrunken face was visible, — 
the fading eye opened upon him for a 
moment and he heard from the withered 
lips this stern whisper of farewell : 
** Young man, never marry, for beauty 
comes to this ! '^ 

The lines of the Poet had fallen in 
pleasant places. With the old house and 
its hostess, and its many known and un- 
known associations, there was no lack of 
material for thought and speculation. A 
country house in New England which is 
not only old, but by the character of its 
structure and its coherent history, sug- 
gests a life of more interest and dignity 
than that of a simple countryman ** whose 
only aim was to increase his store,'* is 
interesting in the degree of its rarity. 
3" 



Xongtellow 



The traveller upon the highroad before 
the Craigie House, even if he knew noth- 
ing of its story, would be struck by its 
quaint dignity and respectability, and 
make a legend, if he could not find one 
already made. If, however, his lot had 
been cast in Cambridge, and he had been 
able to secure a room in the mansion, he 
would not rest until he had explored the 
traditions of its origin and occupancy, 
and had given his fancy moulds in which 
to run its images. He would have found 
in the churchyard of Cambridge a free- 
stone tablet supported by five pillars, 
upon which, with the name. Col. John 
Vassal, died in 1747, are sculptured the 
words, Vas-sol, and the emblems, a gob- 
let and sun. Whether this device was 
a proud assertion of the fact, that the 
fortunes of the family should be always as 

A beaker full of the warm South, 

happily no historian records ; for the 

beaker has long since been drained to 

the dregs, and of the stately family noth- 

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Xongtellow 



ing survived in the early part of the 
poet's residence in the house, but an old 
black man who had been bom, a slave, 
in the mansion during the last days of 
the Vassals, and who occasionally re- 
turned to visit his earliest haunts, like 
an Indian the hunting-grounds of his 
extinct tribe. 

This Col. John Vassal is supposed to 
have built the house towards the close 
of the first half of the last century. 
Upon an iron in the back of one of the 
chimneys, there is the date, 1759, which 
probably commemorates no more than 
the fact of its own insertion at that 
period, inasmuch as the builder of the 
house would hardly commit the authen- 
tic witness of its erection to the mercies 
of smoke and soot. History capitulates 
before the exact date of the building of 
the Craigie House, as completely as before 
that of the foundation of Thebes. But 
the house was evidently generously built,, 
and Col. John Vassal having lived there 
in generous style, died, and lies under 
313 



Xongtellow 



the free-stone tablet. His son John fell 
upon revolutionary times, and was a 
royalist. The observer of the house will 
not be surprised at the fact. That the 
occupant of such a mansion should, in 
colonial troubles, side with the govern- 
ment, was as natural as the fealty of a 
Douglas or a Howard to the king. 

The house, however, passed from his 
hands, and was purchased by the provin- 
cial government at the beginning of 
serious work with the mother country. 
After the battle of Bunker Hill, it was 
allotted to George Washington as his 
headquarters. It was entirely unfur- 
nished, but the charity of neighbors 
£lled it with necessary furniture. The 
southeastern room upon the lower floor, 
at the right of the front door, and now 
occupied as a study by Mr. Longfellow, 
was devoted to the same purpose by 
Washington. The room over it, as 
Madame Craigie has already informed us, 
was his chamber. The room upon the 
lower floor, in the rear of the study, 
314 



/ 



Xon^tellow 



which was afterwards enlarged and is 
now the Poet's library, was occupied by 
the aides-de-camp of the commander-in- 
chief. And the southwest room, upon 
the lower floor, was Mrs. Washington's 
drawing room. The rich old wood carv- 
ing in this apartment is still remarkable, 
still certifies the frequent presence of 
fine society. For, although during the 
year in which Washington occupied the 
mansion, there could have been as little 
desire as means for gay festivity ; yet 
Washington and his leading associates 
were all gentlemen — men who would 
have graced the elegance of a court with 
the same dignity that made the plainness 
of a republic admirable. Many of Wash- 
ington's published letters are dated from 
this house. And could the walls whisper, 
we should hear more and better things 
of him than could ever be recorded. In 
his chamber are still the gay-painted tiles 
peculiar to fine houses of the period ; 
and upon their quaint and grotesque 
images the glancing eyes of the Poet's 
315 



Xongtellow 



children now wonderingly linger, where 
the sad and doubtful ones of Washington 
must have often fallen as he meditated 
the darkness of the future. 

Many of these peculiarities and mem- 
ories of the mansion appear in the Poet's 
verses. In the opening of the poem To 
a Child the tiles are painted anew. 

The lady with the gay macaw, 

The dancing girl, the brave Bashaw 

"With bearded lip and chin ; 
And, leaning idly o'er his gate, 
Beneath the imperial fan of state, 

The Chinese mandarin. 

The next figure that distinctly appears 
in the old house is that of Thomas Tracy, 
a personage of whom the household 
traditions are extremely fond. He was 
a rich man, in the fabulous style of the 
Bast ; such a nabob as Oriental imagina- 
tions can everywhere easily conjure, 
while practical experience wonders that 
they are so rare. He carried himself with 
a rare lavishness. Servants drank costly 
wines from carved pitchers in the incred- 
ible days of Thomas Tracy ; and in his 
316 



%ongtcllo\v 



stately mansion, a hundred guests sat 
down to banquets, and pledged their 
hosts in draughts whose remembrance 
keeps his name sweet, as royal bodies 
were preserved in wine and spices. In 
the early days of national disorder, he 
sent out privateers to scour the seas and 
bleed Spanish galleons of their sunniest 
juices, and reap golden harvests of fruits 
and spices, of silks and satins, from Bast 
and West Indian ships, that the bounti- 
ful table of Vassal House might not fail, 
nor the carousing days of Thomas Tracy 
become credible. But these ''spacious 
times '' of the large-hearted and large- 
handed gentleman suddenly ended. The 
wealthy man failed ; no more hundred 
guests appeared at banquets ; no more 
privateers sailed into Boston Bay, reek- 
ing with riches from every zone ; Spain, 
the Brazils, the Indies, no more rolled 
their golden sands into the pockets of 
Thomas Tracy ; servants, costly wines, 
carved pitchers, all began to glimmer 
and go, and finally Thomas Tracy and 
317 



Xongtellow 



his incredible days vanished as entirely 
as the gorgeous pavilions with which the 
sun in setting piles the summer west. 

After this illuminated chapter in the 
history of the house, Captain Joseph Lee, 
a brother of Madame Tracy, appears in 
the annals, but does not seem to have 
illustrated them by any special gifts or 
graces. Tradition remains silent, pining 
for Thomas Tracy, until it lifts its head 
upon the entry into the house of Andrew 
Craigie, Apothecary-General to the North- 
em Provincial Army, who amassed a for- 
tune in that office, which, like his great 
predecessor, he presently lost ; but not 
until he had built a bridge over the 
Charles River, connecting Cambridge 
with Boston, which is still known by his 
name. Andrew Craigie did much for the 
house, even enlarging it to its present 
form ; but tradition is hard upon him. It 
declares that he was a huge man, heavy 
and dull ; and evidently looks upon his 
career as the high lyric of Thomas 
Tracy's, muddled into tough prose. In 
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the best and most prosperous days of 
Andrew Craigie, the estate comprised two 
hundred acres. Upon the site of the 
present observatory, not far from the 
mansion, stood a summer-house, but 
whether of any rare architectural de- 
vice, whether, in fact, any orphic genius 
of those days made a summer house, 
which, like that of Mr. Emerson's, only 
** lacked scientific arrangement'' to be 
quite perfect, does not appear. Like the 
apothecary to the Northern army, the 
summer-house is gone, as likewise an 
aqueduct that brought water a quarter of 
a mile. Tradition, so enamotured of Tracy 
is generous enough to mention a dinner- 
party given by Andrew Craigie every 
Saturday, and on one occasion points out 
peruked and powdered Talleyrand among 
the guests. This betrays the presence 
in the house of the best society then to 
be had. But the prosperous Craigie could 
not avoid the fate of his opulent prede- 
cessor, who also gave banquets. Things 
rushed on too rapidly for him. The 
319 



Xongtcllow 



bridge, aqueduct, and summer-liouse, two 
hundred acres and an enlarged house, 
were too much for the fortune acquired 
in dealing medicaments to the Northern 
army. The *^ spacious times '* of Andrew 
Craigie also came to an end. A visitor 
walked with him through his large and 
handsome rooms, and struck with admi- 
ration, exclaimed : 

** Mr. Craigie, I should think you could 
lose yourself in all this spaciousness. '* 

*' Mr. '' (tradition has forgotten 

the name), said the hospitable and ruined 
host, "I have lost myself in it," — and we 
do not find him again. 

After his disappearance Mrs. Craigie, 
bravely swallowing the risings of pride, 
and still revealing in her character and 
demeanor the worthy mistress of a noble 
mansion, let rooms. Bdward Bverett re- 
sided here just after his marriage, and 
while still professor in the college of 
which he was afterward President. Wil- 
lard Phillips, Jared Sparks, now the head 
of the University, and Joseph B. Worces- 
320 



%ongtcl[ow 



ter, the Ivexicographer, have all resided 
here, sometimes sharing the house with 
Mrs. Craigie, and, in the case of Mr. 
Worcester, occupying it jointly with Mr. 
Longfellow when the grave old lady 
removed her stately turban for the last 
time. 

The Craigie House is now the Poet's, 
and has again acquired a distinctive in- 
terest in history. It was in Portland, 
Maine, in the year 1807, and in an old 
square wooden house upon the edge of 
the sea, that L/ongfellow was born. The 
old house stood upon the outskirts of the 
town, separated only by a street from 
the water. In the lower story there is 
now a shop, — a bookseller's doubtless, 
muses imagination, — so that the same 
house which gave a singer to the world 
may offer to the world his songs to justify 
its pride in him. He graduated at Bruns- 
wick with Hawthorne, whom then the 
Poet knew only as a shy youth in a 
bright-buttoned coat, flitting across the 
college grounds. During his college 
321 



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days he wooed the muses, as all students 
"WOO ; and in the United States Library 
Gazette^ then published in Boston, the 
world learned how his suit prospered. 
In 1826 Longfellow first visited Europe. 
He loitered through France, Spain, Italy, 
Germany, Holland, and England, and 
returned to America in 1829. Appointed 
Professor in his Alma Mater, he devoted 
himself to the scholar's life, poring long 
and earnestly over the literature of lands 
which he knew so well and truly that 
their literature lived for him and was not 
a hard hieroglyph only. During these 
quiet professorial years he contributed 
articles to the North American Review^ 
2l proceeding not unprecedented among 
New England scholars, and in which 
Emerson, the Everetts, and all the more 
illustrious of the literary men of the 
North, have been participants. The forms 
of foreign travel gradually grouped them- 
selves in his mind. Vivid pictures of 
European experience, such as illuminate 
the memory of every young and romantic 
322 



%ongtcllovc 



traveller, constantly flashed along his 
way, and he began to retrace them in 
words, that others might know, accord- 
ing to the German proverb, that ** behind 
the mountains there are men also." 

In this way commenced the publication 
of Outre Mery or Sketches from Beyond 
the Sea^ a work of foreign reminiscences, 
tales and reveries of the life peculiar to 
Europe. It was published, originally, in 
numbers, by Samuel Colman, a towns- 
man of the author's. Like the Sketch- 
Booky it was issued whenever a number 
was prepared, but unlike the author of 
the Sketch-Book^ the Professor could not 
write as his motto, '* I have no wife nor 
children, good or bad, to provide for" ; 
for in the midst of the quiet professorial 
days, still a very young man, the Poet 
was married, — a fleeting joy ending by 
the death of his wife in Rotterdam in 
1835. In Brunswick, also, and at this 
time, he made the translation of the ode 
upon Coplas de Manrique, by his son 
Don Joze Manrique, a rich, mourn fully- 
323 



Xongtellovv 



rolling Spanish poem. The earlier verses 
of the young man had made their mark. 
In school reading-books, and in volumes 
of elegant extracts, and preserved in 
many a daintily ribboned manuscript, 
the April Day, Woods in Winter^ 
Hymn of the Moravian Nuns at Bethle- 
hem, Burial of the Minnisink, and 
others, were readily found. As yet the 
Poet was guiltless of a volume, but his 
name was known, and upon the credit of 
a few fugitive pieces he was mentioned 
first after the monopolizing masters of 
American verse. 

In the year 1835 he received the ap- 
pointment of Professor in Harvard Col- 
lege, Cambridge, which he accepted, but 
sailed for Europe again in the course of 
the year. Upon leaving he committed 
the publication of Outre Mer to the 
Harpers in New York, who issued the 
entire work in two volumes. The second 
European visit was confined to the north 
of Europe, Denmark, England, Sweden, 
Germany, a long pause in Holland, and 
324 



Xongtellow 



turned, and in December of the same 
year removed to Cambridge to reside. 
Here, again, the North American Re- 
view figures a little in the literary life of 
the Poet. He wrote several articles for it 
during the leisure of his engagements as 
Professor of Modem Literature, and, at 
length, as we have seen, one calm after- 
noon in the summer of 1837, Longfellow 
first took lodgings in the Craigie House, 
with which the maturity and extent of his 
reputation was to be so closely associated. 
Some wan ghost of Thomas Tracy, 
lordly with lace and gracious in per- 
fumed pomp, surely the Poet saw advan- 
cing, holding in his hand some one of 
these antique carved pitchers brimmed 
with that costly wine, and exhorting him 
to drain potent draughts, that not by him 
should the fame of the incredible days 
be tarnished, but that, as when a hun- 
dred guests sat at the banquet, and a 
score of full-freighted ships arrived for 
Thomas Tracy, the traveller should say, 
325 



longfellow 



A purple light shines over all, 

It beams from the luck of Edenhall. 

The vow was pledged, and now under 
the few elms that remain of those 
which the fellow- worms of Mrs. Craigie 
blighted, the ghost of Thomas Tracy- 
walks appeased. 

In his still southeastern upper cham- 
ber, in which Washington had also slept, 
the Poet wrote Hyperion in the years 
1838-9. It is truly a romance, a beaker 
of the wine of youth, and was instantly 
received as such by the public. That 
public was, and must always be, of the 
young. No book had appeared which so 
admirably expressed the romantic expe- 
rience of every poetic young mind in 
Kurope, and an experience which will be 
constantly renewed. Probably no Amer- 
ican book had ever so passionate a popu- 
larity as Hyperion, It was published in 
the summer of 1839 by Colman, who had 
then removed to New York, but at the 
time of publication he failed, and it was 
undertaken by John Owen, the Univer- 
326 



Xongtellow 



sity publisher in Cambridge. It is a 
singular tribute to the integrity of the 
work, and a marked illustration of the 
peculiarity of American development, 
that Horace Greeley, famous as a politi- 
cal journalist, and intimately associated 
with every kind of positive and practical 
movement, was among the very earliest 
of the warmest lovers of Hyperion, It 
shows our national eclecticism of senti- 
ment and sense, which is constantly be- 
traying itself in a thousand and other 
ways. 

Here, too, in the southeast chamber, 
were written the Voices of the Nighty 
published in 1840. Some of the more 
noted, such as the Psalm of Life ^ had 
already appeared in the Knickerbocker 
Magazine. Strangely enough as a fact 
in American literary history, the fame 
of the romance was even surpassed, and 
one of the most popular books of the 
day was Longfellow^ s Poems, They 
were read everywhere by every one, and 
were republished and have continued to 
327 



longtellow 



be republished in Bngland and in various 
other countries. The secret of his popu- 
larity as a poet is probably that of all 
similar popularity, namely, the fact that 
his poetry expresses a universal senti- 
ment in the simplest and most melodious 
manner. Bach of his most noted poems 
is the song of a feeling common to every 
mind in moods into which every mind is 
liable to fall. Thus A Psalm of Life, 
Footsteps of Angels, To the River 
Charles, Excelsior, The Bridge, A 
Gleam of Sunshine, The Day is Done, 
The Old Clock on the Stairs, The Arrow 
and the Song, The Fire of Driftwood, 
Twilight, The Open Window, are all 
most adequate and inexpressibly deli- 
cate renderings of quite universal emo- 
tions. There is a humanity in them 
which is irresistible in the fit meas- 
ures to which they are wedded. If 
some elegiac poets have strung rosaries 
of tears, there is a weakness of woe in 
their verses which repels ; but the quiet, 
pensive thought, — the twilight of the 
328 



%ongtcllow 



mind, in which the little facts of life are 
saddened in view of their relation to the 
eternal laws, time and change, — this is 
the meditation and mourning of every 
manly heart ; and this is the alluring and 
permanent charm of I/Ongfellow's poetry. 

In 1842 the Ballads and other Poems 
were published, and in the same year the 
Poet sailed again for Europe. He passed 
the summer upon the Rhine, residing 
some time at Boppart, where he saw 
much of the ardent young German poet 
Freiligrath. He returned after a few 
months, composing the poems on slavery 
during the homeward passage. Upon 
landing, he found the world drunken 
with the grace of Fanny Kllsler, and 
learned, from high authority, that her 
saltations were more than poetry, where- 
upon he wrote the fragrant Spanish 
Student^ which smells of the utmost 
South, and was a strange blossoming for 
the garden of Thomas Tracy. 

In 1843 Longfellow bought the house. 
The two hundred acres of Andrew Craigie 
329 



Xonetcllow 



had shrunken to eight. But the meadow- 
land in front sloping to the river was 
secured by the Poet, who thereby se- 
cured also the wide and winning pros- 
pect, the broad green reaches, and the 
gentle Milton hills. And if, sitting in 
the most midsummer moment of his life, 
he yielded to the persuasions of the siren 
landscape before him, and the vague 
voices of the ancestral house, and 
dreamed of a fate fairer than any Vassal, 
or Tracy, or Craigie knew, even when 
they mused upon the destiny of the 
proudest son of their house, — was it a 
dream too dear, a poem impossible ? 

In 1846 the Belfry of Bruges collec- 
tion was published, in 1847 the Evan- 
geline^ in 1850 Seaside and Fireside^ and 
in 185 1 the last and best of his works, 
up to the present time — The Golden 
Legend, In this poem he has obeyed 
the highest humanity of the poet's call- 
ing, by revealing, — which alone the poet 
can, — not coldly, but in the glowing and 
affluent reality of life, this truth, that the 
330 



Xongtellow 



same human heart has throbbed in all 
ages and under all circumstances, and 
that the devotion of Love is for ever and 
from the beginning the true salvation of 
man. To this great and fundamental 
value of the poem is added all the dra- 
matic precision of the most accomplished 
artist. The art is so subtly concealed 
that it is not suspected. The rapid reader 
exclaims, "^^ Why ! there is no modern 
blood in this; it might have been ex- 
humed in a cloister." Yes, and there is 
the triumph of art. So entirely are the 
intervening years annihilated that their 
existence is not suspected. Taking us 
by the hand, as Virgil Dante, the Poet 
introduces us directly to the time he 
chooses, and we are at once flushed and 
warmed by the same glorious and eternal 
heart which is also the light of our day. 
This is the stroke which makes all times 
and nations kin, and which, in any in- 
dividual instance, certifies the poetic 
power. 

The library of the Poet is the long 
331 



XonQtellow 



northeastern room upon the lower floor. 
It opens upon the garden, which retains 
still the quaint devices of an antique de- 
sign, harmonious with the house. The 
room is surrounded with handsome book- 
cases, and one stands also between two 
Corinthian columns at one end, which 
impart dignity and richness to the apart- 
ment. A little table by the northern 
window, looking upon the garden, is the 
usual seat of the Poet. A bust or two, 
the rich carvings of the cases, the spa- 
ciousness of the room, a leopard-skin 
lying upon the floor, and a few shelves 
of strictly literary curiosities, reveal not 
only the haunt of the elegant scholar and 
poet, but the favorite resort of the family 
circle. But the northern gloom of a New 
England winter is intolerant of this se- 
rene delight, this beautiful domesticity, 
and urges the inmates to the smaller 
room in front of the house communica- 
ting with the library, and the study of 
General Washington. This is still dis- 
tinctively *Uhe study,*' as the rear room 
332 



Xon^fellow 



is "the library." Books are here, and 
all the graceful detail of an elegant 
household, and upon the walls hang 
crayon portraits of Bmerson, Sumner, 
and Hawthorne. 

Kmerging into the hall, the eyes of the 
enamoured visitor fall upon the massive 
old staircase with the clock upon the 
landing. Directly he hears a singing in 
his mind : 

Somewhat back from the village street, 

Stands the old-fashioned country seat, 

Across its antique portico 

Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw, 

And from its station in the hall 

An ancient timepiece says to all, 

Forever— never ! 

Never — for ever ! 

But he does not see the particular clock 
of the poem, which stood upon another 
staircase in another quaint old mansion, 
— although the verse truly belongs to all 
old clocks in all old country-seats, just as 
the *^ Village Blacksmith '' and his smithy 
are not alone the stalwart man and dingy 
shop under the "spreading chestnut 
tree '' which the Professor daily passes 
333 



%ongtcllow 



upon his way to his college duties, but 
belong wherever a smithy stands. 
Through the meadows in front flows the 
placid Charles. 

River that in silence windest 
Thro' the meadows, bright and free, 

Till at length thy rest thou findest 
In the bosom of the sea ! 

So calmly, likewise, flows the Poet's life. 
No longer in his reveries can mingle 
more than the sweet melancholy of the 
old house's associations. No tradition 
records a ghost in those ghostly cham- 
bers. As if all sign of them should pass 
away, not only Mrs. Craigie's fellow- 
worms destroyed the elms in front, but a 
noble linden tree in the garden, faded as 
she failed, and languished into decay 
after her death. But the pensive grand- 
eur of an old mansion sheds a softer than 
the '* purple light " of the luck of Eden- 
hall upon the Poet's fancies and his page. 



334 



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